"The controversial rule changes were billed as career enhancers, even though military women have been promoted for decades at rates equal to or faster than men. In trying to please feminists who want other women to pay the price, Aspin ignored the advice of experienced combat leaders.
The commission compiled a huge body of credible evidence that in close combat, women do not have an equal opportunity to survive, or to help fellow soldiers survive. It is easy to talk about "sharing the risk" of war, but few women have the strength to cope with physical burdens, including high-tech equipment, that exceed weights carried by Julius Caesar's Roman legionnaires."
And this is the opinion of a woman that was assigned to a Presidential commission during the Clinton years!
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/oped/chi-0304130445apr13,1,1012816.story First female captives held at greater risk
By Elaine Donnelly. Elaine Donnelly, a former member of the 1992 Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces, is president of the Center for Military Readiness
April 13, 2003
It is impossible not to be moved by the dramatic stories of three female soldiers and their male colleagues captured from an ambushed maintenance unit in Iraq. First we saw the frightened face of POW Army Spec. Shoshana Johnson, the single mother of a 2-year-old, and the grisly sight of fellow soldiers killed nearby.
Then we saw Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch, a courageous and severely injured 19-year-old soldier, who was rescued in a mission rarely executed successfully in the past 50 years. Special Forces soldiers and Marines had to dig with their bare hands to retrieve from shallow graves the bodies of eight more soldiers from the same unit. Among the dead was Pfc. Lori Piestewa, a Hopi Indian and single mother of two children.
These stories inspire a wide range of emotions, including pride in the brave women who are serving their country. Military policies regarding women in combat cannot be based on singular stories, however. The views of enlisted women, who outnumber female officers by more than five to one, differ from those who aspire to flag rank. A 1998 General Accounting Office report, quoting a Rand study, found that only 10 percent of female privates and corporals agreed that "Women should be treated exactly like men and serve in the combat arms just like men."
Many people, including the surprised and dismayed family of Spec. Johnson, thought that women could serve their country without undue exposure to close combat. But in 1994, then-Secretary of Defense Les Aspin quietly abolished the Defense Department's "Risk Rule," which spared women in support units from assignments close to the front line. Aspin also eliminated "substantial risk of capture" as a factor that exempted women from involuntary assignment in or near hundreds of previously all-male positions. Exceptions include the infantry, armor, multiple launch field artillery, Special Operations Forces and helicopters, Navy SEALS, and submarines.
The controversial rule changes were billed as career enhancers, even though military women have been promoted for decades at rates equal to or faster than men. In trying to please feminists who want other women to pay the price, Aspin ignored the advice of experienced combat leaders.
The commission compiled a huge body of credible evidence that in close combat, women do not have an equal opportunity to survive, or to help fellow soldiers survive. It is easy to talk about "sharing the risk" of war, but few women have the strength to cope with physical burdens, including high-tech equipment, that exceed weights carried by Julius Caesar's Roman legionnaires.
A recent survey of military personnel conducted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that only 36 percent of both sexes agreed that women would pull their fair share of the load in combat or hazardous situations.
The International Red Cross and other experts on prisoners of war have also reported inequalities in the treatment of male and female prisoners. Brutality that is uniquely cruel to women, including sexual assault and rape, frequently has been used as a weapon of war against women, but rarely men.
A majority of presidential commissioners recognized that official endorsement of gender-neutral violence in combat would not be a step forward for women, but a step backward for civilization. At times the nation has had no choice but to send men to defend America. We do have a choice about sending young women, including single mothers, to fight our wars. If women in support roles are to be subjected to combat violence and "substantial risk of capture" on an equal basis, the American people need to think hard about what that really means.
When I was young and arrogant, a deceived product of the collapse of society in the 60s and 70s, a constant stream of Feminist Speak oozed from my lips. Men and women are exactly the same...blah blah yada yada. Then I had children. The first time I took them to the beach, 3 babies under the age of 5, I instinctively looked for the biggest, strongest male lifeguard and parked them there under his watchful eyes. Things were never the same after that revelation.
Women serving in the military is one thing. But putting women in combat is immoral.
Should women be in combat?No. And I'll go even further than that.
Women should not be training with men in the military. There should be a return to the separation of the sexes. There should be a "Women's Army Corps," "Women's Air Force," etc. A return to WACs, WAVEs, WAFs and the like.
Extremely politically incorrect.
Extremely correct for the adequate defense of our nation, which is, after all, a defense of our fundamental values, NOT of the right of McDonald's to sell "Big Macs" throughout the world.
